


Love Found Among the Ashes

by caliowl



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Stancest Anthology, Unsettling Atmosphere, Unsettling OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caliowl/pseuds/caliowl
Summary: A man wakes up in an unfamiliar environment and has to figure out WTF is going on.





	Love Found Among the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Stancest Anthology and was my idea regarding how Stanley regained his memories so quickly in the finale. A great big THANK YOU to my beta, yehvaru, who is always so encouraging and helpful when it comes to my writing! You're such a sweetheart and I love you to pieces! <3 And also a really big thank you to my friend Rawkingbunny, who was instrumental in boosting my confidence to share my fic early. You're super sweet and so supportive! I'm so lucky to have such great friends :)

“…So I stand humbly before you now, an ancient being given life through contemporary means, born of a powerful magic and an aegis almost _frightening_ in its intensity, to attend to your well-being. The welfare of my summoner’s most adored and dearest of companions is, naturally, my top priority. And considering that this place had been, until very recently, consumed by an unforgiving, mind-shattering, neural inferno - I feel my concern is more than warranted. So. I’ll ask again, for clarification’s sake. How fare you on this day, my king?”

            The so-addressed “king” looked the speaker up and down skeptically, a hint of wariness in his gaze, taking in the bare feet and oversized glasses alongside the ad hoc baby blanket cloak and toilet bowl brush wand.

“…You wanna run that by me one more time in English, there, kiddo?”

            A slow grin began to creep over the addressed child’s face, eerie in its measured spread and uncomfortable in the reveal of numerous overlarge teeth. Surely such a knowing expression didn’t belong on a kid no older than twelve?

            “I believe quite a few curious aspects of my summons were made clear by that reply, my king. I thank you.” Here the boy gave a sweeping bow, bending low at the waist before raising his head to lock gazes with the unnerved man before him. His eyes were unnaturally blue – possibly due to a strange effect created by his large frames, or the contrast from his dark mop of wind-tossed, chestnut-colored hair. “Let me try again. I am the manifestation of a spell, cast by one who loves you deeply, to keep you safe from harm. You recently came under attack by multiple outside influences, and I protected you to the best of my ability. How do you feel?”

            “…Yeah, this seems normal.” The man replied dryly, scratching at a stray itch on his right thigh and getting startled when his fingers came into contact with bare skin. Was he…was he in green and blue striped boxers and an old, stained wife beater having a bizarre conversation with a kid wearing a “no budget” Halloween costume? In…just where the hell _were_ they?

            He looked down at his slippered feet partially buried in the black sand ( _of course_ he was wearing slippers while at a beach, why the hell not, with the way things were going?) and back up past the unusually articulate, weird kid to eye the large body of dark water that was rolling in and out at a leisurely pace on the shoreline. The water appeared to stretch out to the horizon and the hazy, pallid sky offered no break to the monochromatic monotony.

            “Are we…are we at some kinda beach or somethin’?” he asked.

            “No.”

            He waited for a while but when no more information seemed to be forthcoming, and the strange boy kept staring, decided to dig further. “So, like, we talkin’ a lake or bay, then? It can’t be a pond, it’s _way_ too big -”

            “No. Nothing like that.”

            He waited a few more beats of silence expectantly before finally breaking it with a slightly aggravated sigh and a light pinch to the bridge of his nose between two tightly closed eyes. “Look, kid, I’m really tired and I don’t have time for mind games right now.” 

He didn’t realize until he said it just how true that sentiment was. He caught sight of his hand upon opening his eyes and became distracted by the wrinkled skin and small collection of liver spots by his thumb. Huh. Must be feeling his age. “Can you _please_ tell me what’s going on?”

            “I already told you,” the boy said. “I’m not _really_ a human child. I’m a spell, triggered by some outside threats and made manifest by my summoner’s energy. It’s not me that’s human – it’s the being who _cast_ me. But wait a moment, you’re tired?” His gaze became more assessing. “Anything else that feels off or uncomfortable?”

            Tired of asking questions and receiving very little in the way of concrete answers, his companion shouted, “ _Everything!_ Everything is off and uncomfortable! I’m in my underwear at some sorta beach that’s _not_ a beach, with a weird kid playing make-believe! All I know is that I’m _exhausted_!”

He huffed in frustration and tried to get his bearings. Before this strange conversation he’d been standing on the sand, looking out over the water. Two young boys, who appeared to be twins, had caught his attention as they ran by, screaming and shouting and laughing. They were eye-catching, not only due to the contrast of the barren landscape and their exuberant energy, but because of their strange outfits – both having thrown blankets about their shoulders for capes and one carrying a toilet bowl brush wand while the other donned a metal colander. He had taken notice of the large glasses constantly slipping down one’s nose and the noticeable gap in the wide grin of the other, when Glasses had suddenly appeared before him without warning and Gappy was nowhere to be found. And he’d thought how surprising it was that the boy just _appeared_ like that, as if from thin air…

Wait…

…How did _he_ get here?

A tight knot of panic seized his gut and tightened like an agitated python as multiple realizations hit him one after the other. He didn’t know how he got to this strange place, or where it was. He didn’t know this child or his companion, and couldn’t understand why he would. He was an older man, in his underwear, lost in an unfamiliar place and exhausted beyond reason, speaking with a young boy that had chosen the _worst_ time to play dumb. Was he a neighbor’s kid? Was he babysitting? Oh my god, was he _responsible_ for this boy? He had no idea about anything, and could not recall a single thing about the child that stood before him or what their relationship (if they even had one) could possibly be. He tried to think back, to remember a time before this, to try to figure out why they were here, who they were-

A cold sweat broke out all over his body, and he must have made a face or a sound because suddenly his vision filled with a panicked, youthful face. “My king? My king, are you-?”

“ _Enough!_ ”

Glasses leapt back with a gasp at his older companion’s sudden outburst. He stood frozen in shock as the man towered over him, barely leashed anger noticeable in the slight tremors of tightly clenched fists and jaw.

“No more games! No more make-believe, and no more dancing around! I’m not a king, and you’re not a – a whatever you’re supposed to be! Some sorta…magic…knight, or something? Look,” he hurried on, cutting the kid off before he could explain, “the truth is…we’re in trouble. I can’t remember a thing. I don’t know where we are, what we’re doing here…or even _who_ _we are_.” He swallowed roughly at the admission, casting his eyes down and away from the young boy before him, unable to bear witness to his undoubtedly horrified expression. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-“

“I know.”

His head snapped up, shocked gaze locking with a surprisingly innocent and calm one. “Y-you do?”

“Of course,” he replied, matter of fact and with an absent-minded adjustment to his perpetually loose glasses. “Like I said, you were attacked and I tried to protect you to the best of my ability. My abilities aren’t perfect, I’m afraid, nor am I able to protect people from themselves.” Here the boy offered something of an apologetic smile to the distressed man before him. “But I tried my best. My best which was, surprisingly, quite close to my full potential, actually.” Glasses lifted his hands to inspect them, shifting the toilet bowl brush he insisted on carrying from one hand to another so as to better study them individually. The man blinked as his attention was inexplicably drawn to them as well. There was something oddly arresting about those hands... “I wasn’t aware humans were capable of that level of focus and dedication, honestly.”

“You…I... _what is going on_?” The older man cried in distress, voice cracking embarrassingly as he reached the end of his emotional rope. “ _You’re_ human, kid! And how could you _possibly_ know that I lost my memories? Unless…” He gasped suddenly, struck with a possibility that left him sick with dread. The pajamas, the strange location, the memory-loss… “Am I...did I wander out of some sort of… _home_?”

Several tense moments went by while the boy blinked at him in shock before doubling over in unrestrained laughter. “You’re a far cry from ‘home’ indeed, my king!” He giggled, grinning even as his companion scowled darkly at him. “But if you’re thinking of a facility to aid and care for the mentally-ill, then no,” he reassured him with an understanding smile. “Though your memories may be lost, their loss is only temporary and not something that can be regained through mortal medical means. Which is why I have taken it upon myself, as your temporary guardian, to help guide you on to a path that will lead to their recovery.”

The man across from him raised a skeptical eyebrow. “So some delusional kid is gonna help me get my memory back by…what? Playing some sorta game of pretend?”

“If you’ll remember, I’ve openly and repeatedly informed you of my rather _limited_ human origins,” Glasses reminded him with a pointed look. “As for your lost memories? I would think it obvious that I be your guide to retrieve them, considering that it was _I_ who hid them in the first place.”

“ _What?_ ”

The young boy nodded solemnly at the bewildered adult before him. “You were really in trouble. I don’t know what you did to land yourself in such danger, but you’re lucky that the human who cast me knew exactly what he was doing when he created me.”

“So…you really are…? No. No, this is insane.” The older man cut through the air with an impatient hand. “I’m not gonna stand here and believe-“

“Believe what you like,” Glasses interrupted with a casual shrug of a shoulder. “But the fact of the matter is that you did something that resulted in the attempted erasure of _everything you are_. Whatever it was that you did, it must have been incredibly brave.” He watched the beginnings of a smile begin to lift at the corners of his companion’s mouth. “Or incredibly stupid.” The smile died in its infancy, a frown pulling down aggressively to compensate.

The man considered his strange companion for a few quiet moments with an inscrutable look. The boy, for his part, simply waited patiently, a light smirk lingering on his lips. Looking for all the world like an arrogant little-

“Alright, smart guy,” the man rumbled, crossing his arms. “If you’re _really_ some sorta ‘magic guardian’, then you must know who I am.”

The effect of this question was immediate. Glasses smiled brightly, almost glowing in the lackluster light of the sun dimmed by a thick haze. “That I do, indeed! Or, well, at least by reputation,” his bright smile melted into a wry grin. “It’s imperative to my work. I can’t be an effective guardian if I don’t know what it is I guard, after all. Or, in this case, _whom_.”

“So you know my name, then.”

The boy’s grin dropped so suddenly, the older man wasn’t entirely sure he’d witnessed the transition. “I’m so sorry, I can’t-”

“The _hell_ you can’t!” The man growled. “You think you’re so great? Such a hotshot of a ‘guardian’? Then explain to me why you can’t just-”

“Because it won’t _work_!” Glasses cried, holding out his arms imploringly. “It can’t work, because you don’t have the _key_! Anything I try to give you now won’t make any sense without it!”

“Try me.”

The boy grunted in frustration and glared at him as the man gave back as good as he got. Finally, he seemed to relent with a sigh and an irritated adjustment to his glasses. “You want to hear your name now? Fine. It’s-”

            Glasses’s voice came out somehow…blurred, or muffled. As though the kid was trying to communicate with him above the surface of the ocean, and he was stuck trying to decipher his garbled words beneath the waves. The man frowned. “What was that?” Glasses sighed and though he repeated himself slower, in a more stilted speech, he still produced that same distorted, warbling sound.

            “…Ok, kid, you might be onto somethin’ with that whole ‘not being human’ thing, because never have I _ever_ encountered a person with the ability to made sounds like _that_.” The old man stuck his right pinky into his ear and gave it a vigorous jiggle. “Or, at least, I don’t _think_ I have…all I’ve really got to go on now is my gut instincts. And if the size of my gut is any indication,” the old man grabbed at the excess fat around his generous stomach to emphasize its mass, “I’ve got instincts to spare!”

            Glasses stepped closer with a giggle and a gentle touch to the man’s left forearm. “You’d do well to follow its lead,” he advised. “As it is currently the only part of you that really has any memory of your former life. A more primitive and baser knowledge of your former life, to be sure, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

            “Yeah,” the man groused. “I suppose when you put it that way, I’m pretty lucky. Who needs concrete memories of a life lived when you can just react purely on instinct like some kinda wild animal?”

            Glasses’s eyebrows drew together in concern at his companion’s maudlin words. “Just because you don’t have access to your memories, that doesn’t mean you’re not still _you_ , you know,” he pointed out. “Some things are too ingrained in you to ever _completely_ disappear.” He reached out once more and patted one of the older man’s slightly wrinkled hands lightly. “Not to mention that this memory loss is magic-induced and, more importantly, _temporary_. Which means you have a better chance than most at regaining what you sacrificed. All you have to do is find the key to the buried treasure, and you’ll be right as rain!”

            Despite the odd and worrying predicament he found himself in, the older man couldn’t help but feel his spirits lift somewhat at Glasses’s enthusiasm. “First I’m a king, then I’ve got buried treasure. You gotta start paying better attention to your stories, kid; they’re gettin’ away from ya. You’re thinkin’ of _pirates_ , not kings.”

            The young boy across from him doesn’t rise to the bait. If anything, he seemed to take on a more serious air as his gaze effectively bored into his companion’s. “No, I’m not mistaken. I assure you.”

The intensity of the boy’s vibrant blue eyes combined with the absolute certainty with which he spoke unnerved the man more than he’d care to admit. “…And not tryin’ to be a buzzkill or nothin’,” he continued awkwardly, averting his gaze and scratching a bit nervously at the back of his head, “but don’t you ordinarily need to _have_ the treasure chest before you can open it?”

            Glasses blinked owlishly. “But you _do_ have it. I told you, I buried it nice and deep in your subconscious,” he said, fanning blackened and dirty hands out in front of him for inspection. “Don’t worry. I made certain that you’d retain easy access-”

            He was cut off by a sudden gasp and jumped slightly as the man fell to his knees and took hold of his hands. He turned them this way and that, making sure to keep his grip gentle but firm. “What happened to your hands?! How did-?”

            “Sorry, sorry!” Glasses apologized quickly, pulling his hands away and giving them a couple of vigorous shakes. “I just created an illusion to illustrate my point,” he said sheepishly with a contrite look. “See? They’re perfectly fine!” He declared, spreading them out once more to show off a pair of miraculously clean, unblemished hands.

            The old man blinked at them slowly, as if in shock, before slowly transferring his attention to the black sand beneath his knees. The boy watched him with some trepidation and, right as he opened his mouth to ask after his companion’s welfare, was suddenly interrupted.

            “You said…you said you buried my memories in my…subconscious?”

            The words were asked so carefully and hesitantly that the question caused a lump to form in Glasses’s throat. It made his subsequent swallow that much louder before replying quietly in the affirmative.

            Not looking up, the man on the ground took up a bit of the “sand” in his right hand for closer inspection. “And your hands…they were covered in this stuff,” he murmured, allowing the fine, black mass to sift between his fingers as realization began to dawn. “We’re in my head, aren’t we? That’s why I don’t remember how I got here, and why everything is weird and unsettling. Different rules apply in dreams.”

He thought over his companion’s odd choice of words and actions, and felt more certain of his conclusion. People you met in dreams always were strange and frustratingly vague. Speaking of… “You mentioned a fire, earlier,” he said, turning his head to stare at the boy shuffling awkwardly next to him. He gestured to the black substance in his hand. “Is this…?”

            “…They’re the remains of the manifestations of your memories,” Glasses confirmed in a low tone, watching sadly as the aged hand tightened suddenly into a white-knuckled grip around the last of the ashes in its palm. “All that’s left of the landscape created in your subconscious. What you see before you is a visual metaphor your mind created to reflect the recent traumatic attacks it experienced. As you can see,” he murmured with one arm sweeping wide to encompass the bleak landscape, “not much is available for it to work with.”

            “That’s not true,” the adult argued suddenly. He elaborated at Glasses’s confused look. “Earlier, when you first appeared, you were accompanied by another boy who looked almost just like you. He’s been gone since then, but-”

            “Ah! Yes, him,” Glasses said uncomfortably, hand rising to scratch sheepishly at the back of his head. “Well, with me present, it isn’t _only_ your memories influencing your subconscious landscape. I _may_ have taken a little more… _artistic license_ …with the information provided by my summoner.”

            “Like that little trick you showed off earlier with the hands?”

            “…Something like that, yes,” he admitted, shamefaced. “I was created with the goal of protecting you, which gives me certain abilities and leeways not generally afforded to other types of spells – even most other protection spells. I can actually affect your memories themselves, which is subsequently reflected in the landscape. So when I told you that I had effectively buried your memories in your subconscious…”

            The man stared at him, averted his attention down to the ground, and then back to him. “No. No way. Are you actually saying that if I dug around in here long enough, I’d _literally_ find my memories?”

            “These ashes had to come from _somewhere_ ,” Glasses pointed out. “Though your memories aren’t currently available to your conscious mind, their presence is still strong enough to be detected by your subconscious, if only slightly. Which is why your landscape shows evidence of _something_ having been here, even if the specifics of the actual sources themselves are currently unknown. So, when you combine the idea of protected, hidden memories with an influencing spell the creator imbued with a penchant for dramatic flair…”

            Here the boy gave a pointed wave of his hand over the ashes before the kneeling older man. The patch of dark matter incrementally parted under an invisible wind to reveal…

            The man barked out a surprised laugh. “Oh my God!” He cackled. “It really _is_ a treasure chest! Unbelievable.” He brushed some remaining ash off the curved, wooden lid idly as he eyed the large keyhole in front of him. “So, where do I find the key?”

            Glasses coughed awkwardly into one fist as he quickly averted his gaze. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘lock the door and throw away the key’?”

            His companion stared back at him, gobsmacked. “…Seriously? You _threw away_ the _key_ to my _memories_?”

            “Well, _technically_ , there are multiple keys,” the boy – the spell, the _guardian_ , seriously, holy-! – the guardian divulged. “I wanted to make sure you had several avenues available for memory retrieval. All of them are related by a core component, however-”

            “I don’t care how _many_ of them there are!” The man interrupted him sharply. “The number doesn’t matter if I don’t even know where the hell to _find_ them!”

            “Well I’m certainly not going to leave the keys to your memories lying around waiting to be consumed by a powerful mind eraser! What kind of impotent protection spell do you take me for?!” The guardian crossed its little arms over its chest as it raised one critical eyebrow. “I tied the lock to your memory chest to several things you’ll be able to encounter in the physical world.”

            “The physical-?”

            “Or the ‘normal’ world, I suppose you might say? Outside of your head, where your family and friends are no doubt waiting for you. Your home.” Glasses tilted his head questioningly. “Don’t you want to go home to your family?”

            The older man’s heart lurched almost painfully in his chest at the mention of family. “Of course I do! But, I mean,” he stuttered, “the keys aren’t, like, spread out across the _globe_ or anything, right?”

            His pint-sized companion snorted in derision. “I’m _thorough_ , not unnecessarily cruel. Don’t take me for some mythical character from your human fairytales,” he stated with a dismissive flick of a wrist. “I made sure to tie your memories to things easily within your reach, via family and friends. But, if it will put your mind at ease, I can teach you a small spell to help you locate at least one person in particular who would be more than willing to help you out.”

            The man frowned in confusion. Someone in _particular_? “Who?”

            “My summoner,” Glasses clarified. “I am not an easy spell to will into being. _Especially_ when you take into account the amount of power I possess. Many conditions have to be met, some rather abstract to a human’s way of thinking, and the process is quite time-consuming. Aside from the rather eclectic assortment of tools and arcane phrases one might normally expect to be required for this type of magic, a great deal of focus, will and intention are also necessary.”

Here he broke off from his lecture briefly, turning toward the shore to retrieve a long, thin piece of driftwood that the man couldn’t remember seeing earlier. “The bulk of the work comes into play during the construction of the shielding symbol, which you will use to determine my summoner’s identity,” he explained as he thrust the point of the stick into the ashes and began to trace a large circle. “Not that I really think you’ll need it, of course, but I suppose it never hurts to have a trick up your sleeve. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The older man hummed absent-mindedly in agreement, focused on the strange lines and patterns slowly emerging in the dark ashes.

“There will be an object on your person when you wake,” Glasses continued as he worked. “Most likely a scrap of paper. It will appear blank, but will reveal the shielding symbol when you breathe this spell over it: ‘reveal your heart’.”

His companion looked up at him with a discomfited twist to his lips. “Really? That’s the spell? It couldn’t be a little less…uh…”

“Uncomfortable to say?” The guardian asked with a knowing smirk. “I’m afraid not. If you’re really _that_ determined to find my summoner, it’s that or nothing. Now, once you say it, a symbol like this will appear,” he said, indicating the partially constructed, complicated pattern in the ashes, “and it will glow blue when it comes into contact with its creator.”

“And you’re certain this person will help me?” The man asked doubtfully. “I mean, I don’t remember a thing about them.”

The question managed to capture the guardian’s attention enough that it caused a slowing in his progress, the stick seeming to drag through the ashes as he absentmindedly continued to trace the pattern. After some time spent in quiet contemplation, he spoke. “I mentioned earlier about all the little things that made me possible – the incantations, the symbols, the effort – but the foundation of it all, the thing that makes up the very core of my _being_ , is that human’s love for you.

“The nature of the spell requires it, you see. In order to weave the magic into an effective shield, the spell is cast incrementally using the shielding symbol as a kind of map. Every line or symbol drawn represents something related to the shielded – an attribute, memory or even a hope the summoner has for that individual. So you could say I know you like the back of my hand.”

Here the guardian lifted a hand to show off the back with its fingers spread, of which there were _six_. Six fingers on each hand. No wonder his gaze had been drawn to them before! This understanding was short-lived, however, when a strange blue light coming from beneath them captured the man’s attention instead.

There, in the center of the small hand, was a glowing, completed shielding symbol – a large circle encompassing an intricate design comprised of crisscrossing straight and curved lines peppered with unfamiliar symbols. He could discern no familiar pattern in their placement, only that together they formed an almost haphazard, dense web within the circular boundary.

“My favorite parts of my formation were always when my summoner went off-script,” the guardian confided with a soft smile. “They tried so hard to be measured and empirical in their facts and praise, but they’d often end up waxing poetic instead.”

“Waxing poetic? About _me_?” The man looked himself over to check, and yep. Still the same dirty underthings and old slippers, the same chicken legs under the massive beer belly and barrel chest covered in a veritable _jungle_ of unsightly, greying hair. “Yeaaah, I’m gonna hafta call bullshit on-”

            “He’s so self-deprecating.”

The voice was deep and rich, and caused the man to jump slightly and whip his head up to find the source. Standing before him, in place of the child form he had come to expect from the guardian, was an older man swathed in dark traveler’s clothing. They were about the same height, though it was difficult to tell between the grey wrappings obscuring the newcomer’s head and his heavy-looking black combat boots. Thick goggles obscured his eyes, a detail that inexplicably niggled at the older man though he allowed it to pass unexamined.

The newcomer’s words continued to flow with crystal clarity, despite the thick cloth barrier. “I know he says these things to get a laugh, but the frequency with which he tells those sorts of jokes makes me worry he actually _believes_ the things he says. Which is so sad to me, because they couldn’t be further from the truth.”

The stranger began to approach at a sedate pace. “He’s so charismatic and full of life. His warmth and exuberance draws people to him like moths to a passionate flame. He’s always been so intelligent and confident; I always knew he’d go far once he applied himself.”

He comes to a stop before the man, just outside of his personal space. “His charm and sparkling personality draw me to his side instantly. I’ve never reacted to anyone the way I react to him. I’ve refrained from taking any action due to our…circumstances…but the truth is I’ve always been…” He raises one hand up towards the man’s cheek, as if to cup it, but stops part-way with a faint tremor. “…I’ve always been so taken with him. He’s perfect. Perfectly imperfect. Perfectly him, and I…I feel I’ve been in love with him my whole life.”

The man grabs at the stranger’s - the _summoner’s_ \- raised hand with a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob and presses it to his cheek with both hands tightly. He runs his fingers lightly over the back of the man’s hand, a sense of _home_ enveloping him as he encounters a fifth knuckle. He was sure, even with his lack of memories, that the number six had never been so comforting.

A sudden weight on his head shocks him out of his reverie and he starts when he discovers the hand missing from his cheek and dots of light barely squeezing out between small holes bored into the object obscuring his sight. He reaches up and pulls the object – a metal colander – off his head and comes face-to-face with the guardian.

He’s grinning brightly, backlit by a setting sun washing the whole scene with vibrant hues of pink and orange. He’s also now the man’s height, and he looks down to discover that he is now in the body of a boy of similar age. The blue jeans and red and white striped shirt are a welcome change from his underthings, but his eyes widen in realization at the knot tied around his neck with the ends of a blanket. Just like…

He runs his tongue over the backs of his teeth, grunting in acknowledgment as he encounters a gap in the front. He’s certain of it, now. He’s in the body of the boy who was running alongside the guardian during his first appearance. Which means, if he looks like the boy, who looks like the guardian, who looks like his summoner…

It’s all very straightforward, when you get down to it, but if it’s true then that means…

“It’s time to start your journey, my king,” the guardian says, interrupting his thought process. “They’re waiting for you back home. You’ll have to look to your family and friends for guidance now.”

“Wait…”

“Remember, ‘reveal your heart’ or the magic cannot take effect.” The ancient magic in the guise of a young boy winked cheekily at him. “Safe travels on your quest, my king.”

“Wait-!”

But it was too late. The sun behind the guardian brightened to a near intolerable level, the glare obscuring everything from view until it all went white. Then the man knew no more.

\---

In a small, sun-dappled glade nestled in a forest in a small town in Oregon called Gravity Falls, a man named Stanley Pines returns to consciousness. He looks at the greenery around him to get his bearings – missing the tell-tale crinkle of paper coming from inside a borrowed, six-fingered glove.


End file.
